Im looking at rolling a group of enemies together citing the following rule.
The GM rolls initiative for anyone other than the player characters in the encounter. If these include a number of identical creatures, the GM could roll once for the group as a whole and have them take their turns within the group in any order. However, this can make battles less predictable and more dangerous, so the GM might want to roll initiative for some or all creatures individually unless it’s too much of a burden.
Mechanically, this is slightly better than rolling for each enemy, then delaying until they can all act together and could make for some interesting ambush dynamics.
But I am unsure of how this interacts with Avoid Notice or Stealth for Initiative.
The only thing I can find discouraging this is the Quiet Allies feat which lets the players roll a group Stealth roll but specifically says it does not apply to initiative rolls. So the system seems to want to discourage this.
Can anyone provide any concrete rules that either allow or prohibit Avoid Notice group iniative rolls?
| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
First let me say as a GM, while it sounds nice to only roll once, don't roll once.
It sounds fine, until the players as a group roll kind of poorly and you roll a nat 20 on initiative and suddenly all 6 enemies get to act first.
It's also bad form as a GM to delay actions so the enemy gets 6 characters worth of actions back to back, because it can be very hard for players to react to that kind of action block. As you can totally just yse all 6 characters actions to gang up one PC.
If I really do have 6 NPCs that are the same, I'm more likely to break them into 3 groups of 2. If I had 5 NPCs I might do 2 and 3. But never all of them together. And never delay to group all the actions together.
It honestly goes against the "unwritten rules" of "sportsmanlike" conduct of being a GM.
That out of the way, I'm not sure I fully understand your question.
Avoid Notice is a exploration activity, which typically NPCs aren't doing. Which isn't to say that NPCs can't being moving with stealth, but more that the exploration activity rules were written primarily for adjudicating PC actions, not NPC actions.
It sounds like you ultimately want to know if you can justify using one initiative roll while the NPCs might be actively using stealth.
To which I will say, if the NPCs are sneaking up on the PCs the NPCs don't roll stealth. The PCs roll their perception against their stealth DC, or possibly the NPCs roll stealth against the PC's perception DCs. (Not sure which is more correct) but in general PF2 did away with opposed rolls. It's generally whoever is taking an active approach/action against the other rolls against the appropriate DC (which is the skill modifier + 10).
What Claxon said.
And yeah, it's whoever is acting that rolls vs. the DC of the other side.
So if the NPCs sneak up on the PCs, NPCs roll.
If the PCs are walking into an area where the NPCs have hid, the PCs roll.
If they stumble into each other, especially if both sides have creatures sneaking or a mix, then it likely goes into initiative, which is the only opposed roll in PF2. There might well be people rolling high Stealth for initiative that remain hidden to others. One example a dev gave showed how two parties might walk right past each other; their Stealth was higher than the Perception of the other side. (Of course there's some meta-awareness that might interfere if the GM goes into Encounter mode then back to Exploration mode.) I'm loathe to move my players' creatures so they're used to moving their figures about even outside combat (kind of a hybrid mode).
NPCs delaying action is a powerful strategic move, I wouldn't never use it but it's part of the power budget of an encounter.
Fighting low level kobold viet congs that are played with the highest strategic acumen is a timeless classic.
You can also balance it by having NPCs only act this way because of a squad leader. That takes a good chunk of mental bandwidth for the GM tho.
I'd avoid to roll once. It can really create some unexpected issues like Claxon said with all the enemies acting before the players.
But delaying, that I'd definitely use. I don't think delay is really that strong, as I've never seen any group including it in it's day to day tactics. But sometimes, it's logical for the enemies to delay to harmonize their initiatives and I don't see why I wouldn't do that (after all, characters can also delay and then act in the middle of the enemies actions to prevent initiative stacking if they want).
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I think delaying is a tactical decision that should be enemy dependent. Mindless enemies for example, should not be using tactics, in my opinion.
I am not sure there is a rule that supports that, but I think there is?
I would be more likely to use delay and similar combat tactics with intelligent enemies. I would use blocked initiative or roll for everyone and delay to the slowest for a more cohesive unit, such as wolves, other animals that hunt in packs, or a military regiment being led by a commander. I would also narrate the commander barking orders.
Its also important to operate off what the NPCs actually know. If they are all invisible, for example, coordinating would not be practical.
Another idea I have seen proposed is to use the troop template.
I'm not sure I fully understand your question.
My intention for the question is how to run an ambush using block initiative for circumstances when you have many enemies and rolling individual initiatives can be overwhelming. My current method is to preroll. Another method I have seen is to group a few of the enemies and roll once for that group.
Be it fair or otherwise; I am curious what the rules say (and if there are any) about block initiative, since this is a rules forum, not an advice forum.It's also bad form as a GM to delay actions so the enemy gets 6 characters worth of actions back to back, because it can be very hard for players to react to that kind of action block. As you can totally just use all 6 characters actions to gang up one PC.
...
It honestly goes against the "unwritten rules" of "sportsmanlike" conduct of being a GM.
The sportsmanlike conduct remark is appreciated; The scenario you described does indeed sound like bad form. I believe it is a responsibility of a GM to enhance the experience of the table they are running for the players they are running it for. Which is an underlying motive for this question being posted.
It sounds like you ultimately want to know if you can justify using one initiative roll while the NPCs might be actively using stealth.
I am not asking for justification of anything. I am simply asking what rules, if any, exist to address block initiative with Avoid Notice (stealth for initiative).
Well, to the best of my knowledge the only thing that comes close to addressing it is the Quiet Allies feat, but that is in relation to following the expert, and specifically says you don't use it for init.
The only thing that starts to address it is the rule about grouping init of NPCs. However, those rules are completely divorced and separate from PC rules, and honestly feel like they should be able to be applied because it pre-supposes that the enemies are identical (and would therefor have the same stealth and perception).
So in so much as it's allowable to group init rolls for NPCs in the first place, I would say it is allowable to do so when using Avoid Notice. Which isn't actually something NPCs do, the exploration rules are for PCs, however I get what you're trying to say and the difference isn't really tangible.
For my NPCs/Monsters with the same stat blocks, I roll once and then subtract by one for each additional creature.
Eg., I roll once total for 4 zombies and get a result of 20. Zombie 1 goes on 20, zombie 2 on 19, zombie 3 on 18, and zombie 4 on 17. Bosses get their own roll. I then announce to everyone what the initiative order is so everyone can plan and act accordingly. This system saves time and helps keep the initiative orders mixed instead of feeling blocked.
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
On a virtual tabletop, there is almost always some automated initiative roller for NPCs available. At least an initiative tracker that can track each token on the board. This removes 95% of the need to group NPC initiative for managerial reasons.
On a pen an paper tabletop, this is a little bit more cumbersome. I do tend to group NPCs but only if there really are very many of them; I often have a "boss", "lieutenant", "mooks 1" and "mooks 2" team. I'll avoid grouping the stronger enemies together and I'll only group them if I would otherwise end up with more than 3-4 teams.
If you're prerolling it might be nice to also number your pawn bases. That's useful anyway for keeping your HP ledger straight, but also makes it easier to run distinct initiatives for similar enemies.
---
To answer the rules question: there is no way for players to do a group initiative roll like this either. Ambush rules are really very spotty. The surprise round as a rule is gone entirely. Probably, with the new action economy, surprise rounds are just too powerful.
You could say that due to ambush preparations, the enemies get a +2 circumstance bonus to their Stealth for initiative. Then most likely, many of them end up clumped together high in initiative, but probably not all (because the d20 is a large random factor). Which is quite fitting because even a well-prepared ambush rarely goes off perfectly. There'll be some people who missed the cue, were a bit slow to get moving etc.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
To answer the rules question: there is no way for players to do a group initiative roll like this either. Ambush rules are really very spotty. The surprise round as a rule is gone entirely. Probably, with the new action economy, surprise rounds are just too powerful.
Not as initiative, no. But the usual effect of a surprise round can be replicated in initiative.
Assume the party is aware of the enemy NPCs' presence in another room through scrying or special senses and the enemies aren't.The players can roll stealth as initiative with a massive bonus as there's very little chance for them to give away their position. Even if they don't have a block initiative, they should stay hidden and unnoticed.
Now they are in initiative and can delay to align themselves before doing a coordinated dynamic entry.
The drawback being that while they are in initiative, they now have to keep beating the perception DC of the NPCs while they get in position. This lets the GM set a limit on how much you can get out of that "surprise turn" by imposing a certain distance that can't be crossed easily while stealthy to bleed actions on that first turn.
If you're prerolling it might be nice to also number your pawn bases. That's useful anyway for keeping your HP ledger straight, but also makes it easier to run distinct initiatives for similar enemies.
I preroll all enemies initiative, and numbering the pawns base is indeed essencial!
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
First let me say as a GM, while it sounds nice to only roll once, don't roll once.
It sounds fine, until the players as a group roll kind of poorly and you roll a nat 20 on initiative and suddenly all 6 enemies get to act first.
In addition to the problems this can cause, I honestly think it’s pretty boring when all of one side acts, then all of the other side acts, and on and on. Sometimes that, or something close to that happens even when rolling individual initiatives for enemies, but the flow of combat always seems more interesting to me when it’s a back and forth.